Night Terrors
by KevlarMasquerade
Summary: Starfire doesn't always sleep soundly. She has dreams. Her worst memories all come back to haunt her in the night. It can be trying for her teammates. Some RobStar just for flavor.


**Okay. I wrote each segment in this fic in twenty minutes or less as a part of an exercise I was doing. This is a lot of angst with a punch in the face of pure fluff at the end. So, like, it's a nice punch.**

Starfire had nightmares.

She'd always had nightmares. As a little girl, they were about silly things, like monsters under her bed, or all of the zorkaberries on Tamaran inexplicably dying so that she would never enjoy their taste again, or of her pet dror turning into a jar'ist and swallowing her whole. She got older and they became more real- of being kidnapped for ransom, or of her flight failing her while she was flying so high above the tropical skies of Tamaran that ice particles formed in the air, leaving her to fall to her death.

Then, for a while, her nightmares were the same as her life. Her dreams of the Gordanian slavers and her Citadelian masters sometimes made it hard to tell if she was awake or asleep.

Then on Earth, her dreams changed. She didn't really have nightmares anymore. Maybe it was because she tried so hard to forget, she'd even chased the dreams away. And that was perfectly fine with her.

...

The full moon shone down, bright and strong. The empathic girl was pacing in the hallways. She was trying to count her steps: one, two, three, four, five, six- turn- one, two, three, four, five, six- turn- one, two three... fear... Um, four, five, six- turn- one, two... despair... Raven gasped and clenched her eyes shut tight. She peeked one eye open. The steel doors looked like the ones that slid back to reveal her own room, but she knew that what lay behind them couldn't be more different.

Pink rug, round bed, tiny uniform tops and skirts hanging in the closet, sweet alien fruits hoarded away...

The emotions coming from there were all wrong. Pain, fear, distrust, loss, shame. Rolling out so strongly that Raven couldn't sleep. She glanced around the hallway guiltily.

She opened a portal in Starfire's doors and passed through the steel easily. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open, too shocked to do anything else.

Starfire was screaming, muttering in her alien language. Green light emanated from her hands, not controlled enough in sleep to be a real starbolt, but enough that it threw odd shadows on the walls and ceiling.

"Starfire!" Raven shouted, but she couldn't even hear herself over the animalistic screaming.

So much pain, filling Raven's head to the brim and forcing itself out in tears. The empath kneeled at he side of he bed, hands clapped over her knees, peering at the face of her friend, concerned and confused. She'd only known her for a short amount of time- the team had only been formed a few weeks ago- but Raven couldn't imagine what might have happened to Starfire in her past to cause... this.

Raven put one hand over the shrieking alien's mouth to stifle the screams a little and put one hand on her cheek. It was better if both hands were on the temples, but this was close enough.

Visions... a dark cell with a drain in the middle of the floor, floor made of cold concrete, heavy handcuffs on her wrists. Coated in grime. A slimy creature shoving her on her back, forcing her to-

Raven gasped and wrenched her hands away. She wasn't supposed to see that.

Starfire's screams had dissolved into sobs now, sad and scared, and the sound of it made Raven's eyes well with her own tears.

She needed to get out. Tremors shook her body, from the force of all the emotions and the disgusting images she'd seen. She wanted to help Starfire and take the edge off the dream, but she wouldn't be able to do that shaken up like this.

Raven grabbed her by the shoulders and shook hard. "Starfire! Snap out of it! You're dreaming!"

The alien's shrieks grew louder and in sleep, Starfire reared her hand back and drove it into Raven's stomach. The empath doubled over, the physical pain of the punch distracting her and making her let in the emotional pain. It was too much.

Raven had to crawl out of the room, holding her stomach- Starfire's super-powered punches really hurt- and she went back to her room. Candles flared into life thanks to a levitated match, and the dark sorceress levitated gently over her mattress, working on putting up emotional blocks against Starfire's fear.

She woke up early the next morning, groggy and probably needing about an hour more of sleep. Raven shook the sleep away from her head and rubbed her eyes and went over to Starfire's room. She knocked quietly, unsure of what to do when Starfire answered her door.

"Greetings, friend!" the orange-skinned alien chirped. "I wish you a pleasant morning! What is it that you are doing awake at this glorious hour?"

Raven blinked at her friend and tilted her head. "Um... I... wanted to check on you. I heard you having nightmares last night."

Starfire just gave her a confused smile. "Friend, your worry is misplaced. I did not have any shlorvaks last night. My sleep was peaceful. Your concerns flatters me!"

Raven narrowed her eyes. "I heard you. You punched me in the stomach! It was an accident," she hastily added when Starfire's face fell, "but I have the internal injuries to prove it."

The taller girl laughed. "Perhaps you are the one whose shlorvaks were troubled." Starfire stretched her arms above her head. "Allow me to do the dressing, and we may obtain the breaking fast and you may tell me about your shlorvaks then." She popped back into her room, Raven peering in after her, bemused. She sighed, shrugged, and went back to her room to sleep more.

...

Beast Boy had been curled up on her bed, cradling that stupid heart box he gave her.

He was so tired. Tired of feeling this way. It felt like someone stretched out his body and ran over his chest with a freight truck, then put him back to normal. Now the pain was so concentrated, he was almost numb.

He'd slept all day, too heartbroken and depressed to do anything else. Now that it was nighttime, of course, sleep eluded the changeling.

He was going to pee- more because he needed to stretch out his legs a little than because he actually needed to- and he was too lazy to even change back into a human.

His paws hit the carpet silently. The silence around him made it even more startling when a shriek pierced the air.

Actually, it wasn't that loud, really. Enhanced hearing and all. For Beast Boy to hear it through the relatively soundproof steel walls of the Tower, even as a dog, the screaming had to be very loud.

This spurred him into changing back to his human form. He approached the source of the sound- Starfire's room- and he twitched a pointed ear.

"Star?" he called softly. "Starfire?"

The screaming continued. Sliding off his glove- he was too depressed to summon the energy to change into pajamas- he put his hand on the handprint scanner that stood at chest-level (chest-level for Raven, Robin, and Beast Boy, at least) next to all the doors. The scanner accepted him.

Starfire was very open and she programmed her door to always allow the other Titans entrance. It was just how she was, Beast Boy supposed. He, himself, had his door programmed for automatic entrance for Cyborg. He was just too lazy to do t for the others. It wasn't his fault; programming the doors took forever! Raven and Robin both had their roxxxoms locked up tight, and Cyborg had his programmed to let the others in only if he was in the room, too. He was just paranoid about the Titans touching his tech, but Beast Boy would_ never_ touch Cyborg's tech. Never ever.

The shrieks coming from Starfire's room echoed down the hall and Beast Boy darted into the pink and purple bedroom before the shouting woke up the others.

"Star. Starfire, it's okay. You're dreaming." Beast Boy shook her shoulders gently. She recoiled away from him.

He tilted his head at her. He cupped his hands over his mouth and pressed his pinkies over her ear so that his voice was funnelled directly into her ear. "Wakey, Wakey!"

Nothing. Huh. She muttered in Tamaranean, high was somewhat frightening. Beast Boy stepped back and rubbed the nape of his neck. What should he do? Get Raven? He couldn't get in her room. Robin might wanna know about this. There was something going on between them, Beast Boy was pretty sure.

The thought made him feel... surprisingly bitter. He sighed and pushed that away. Just because of... her... didn't mean he had to feel resentful of his friends and the possibility if their relationship with each other.

He couldn't wake Starfire. But he couldn't just leave. Star needed... He didn't know what she needed. What if she woke up and she was scared?

Beast Boy shifted into a kitten and sat at the foot of her bed. If she needed him, he'd be there.

"Beast Boy?"

Said changeling stretched and blinked a few times.

"Please, what are you doing in my dwelling?"

Uh oh. He shot up into a sitting position. He'd fallen asleep, and he couldn't keep his form while he was unconscious. "Um..." he stammered. This was not good. Not that Starfire seemed upset, but Robin had rules about the guys falling asleep in the girls' rooms. He said it didn't lead to anything good, plus it looked bad. That and Beast Boy didn't particularly want Starfire to tell Robin that he'd fallen asleep in her room. Robin would take that the wrong way and he'd subtly punish Beast Boy for it. Dish duty here, early morning patrol there...

"Uh, are you-?" he began, but she interrupted him by asking the same question.

"Are you the oh of kay, friend?" she asked softly.

"Me?" He blinked at her. "I'm totally fine. But you-"

"Beast Boy. I know that going through what you have gone through is... difficult. The breaking of the heart."

He so didn't want to talk about this.

"Even though it is sad, I suppose that it is something that nearly everyone experiences. But it is only a way of learning; learning to truly value the love when you have it, because it is fragile." She pillowed her chin on her knees, which were pulled up to her chest. "Learning is difficult, Beast Boy, is it not?"

He realized that his mouth was hanging open and he shut it with a clack of his teeth. "I don't... I mean, I wasn't in..." He choked. "Um... have you ever had your heart broken, Star?" Beast Boy asked, changing the subject.

She looked down and picked at the comforter. "Many times."

"Oh. Is that you were having nightmares about?"

Starfire cocked her head at him. "No shlorvaks visited me last night."

"Shlor-? But they totally did!"

She giggled. "It is amusing of you attempt to hide your reasons for coming here, friend. I realize that our other friends are not the welcoming to their dwellings, especially in the night. I do not mind. The practice of sharing a bed for comfort is common on Tamaran. On Earth, I believe it is taboo for two people, especially of different genders, to share a bed unless they are the married?" She looked to him for confirmation.

"Um... Uh, something like that. Almost."

"On Tamaran, siblings often share beds until they have reached their teenage years if they are close in age." Starfire smiled at him. "You are as much a sibling to me as Ryand'r was, and so much more than Blackfire ever was."

The changeling smiled back, then frowned. "But I wasn't-!" He sighed, giving up. "Thanks, Star. Um, just do me a favor and don't tell Robin."

She furrowed her brow at him. "Very well. Why not?"

"Just don't, okay?"

She nodded.

...

Robin sighed. He shouldn't be doing this. But damn it, he was... happy.

It had been three days since he'd triggered some kind of reagent in one of Slade's old masks that he'd been looking at. That was a terrible night. The nights after that... Well, they were markedly _not_ terrible.

He'd ended up going to see Starfire. He wanted to apologize to her for bruising her arm. He felt so terrible for that. He glanced at her, curled up on her round mattress next to him, and pulled the sheets back to look at her arm. The marks were all gone, courtesy of advanced Tamaranean healing. His cuts and bruises were gone, too, courtesy of Raven's powers.

Anyway, he'd gone to Starfire's room and... he wasn't sure how this happened, but... he ended up sleeping in her bed. It wasn't like that. She'd explained to him about Tamaranean sleeping habits, and Robin really needed to be comforted. He could always count on Starfire for that.

And then the next night he still wasn't able to sleep. So he came back. He made sure that she was underneath the sheet and he was over it. Because it _wasn't like that_. No matter what Wally thought about it.

But... he should probably stop sleeping in her bed. A little sleepy sigh escaped from Starfire's lips, breaking him from his thoughts. Her hair was sticking to her mouth and he gently pushed it back. He retracted his hand quickly. No touching. Not when he was in her bed.

Her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks and he wondered what she was dreaming about.

"No," she whimpered, and he could feel her tense up next to him. He tensed up, too, now really wondering what she was dreaming about.

"Stop!" she cried, and tremors shook her body.

"Starfire?" Robin called, sitting up and leaning on his elbow.

Sh was muttering in Tamaranean. He didn't know what she was saying, but if it was anything like what she was saying in English, it wasn't good.

"Starfire, wake up." He reached out to touch her, and when he did she whimpered in pain. "Star, please." She was getting more and more worked up, and before long tears were spilling out from her closed eyes.

If there was one thing he couldn't handle, it was girls when they cried. Especially Starfire.

She was sobbing before long, Robin's attempts to wake her absolutely futile. It probably didn't help that he was trying not to touch her too much.

She was sobbing loudly. Robin didn't have a lot of experience comforting people, and she didn't seem conscious of the fact that he was there, which made it difficult.

Oh, he knew what she was dreaming about. She'd told him some of it before. Gordanian slavers, Citadelian lords who used her. He suspected that she hadn't truthfully told him everything, and he was trying to fill in the blanks as he looked down at her, feeling unfamiliarly helpless.

When she finally fell back into a normal sleep pattern, he threw the covers away from himself and slipped back into his own bed.

He didn't bring it up to her the next day, and she didn't say anything about his not being there when she woke up or the night terror she'd had.

He hoped that she didn't remember it. She didn't seem to; she was in an extraordinarily good mood the next day, if a little upset that their new sleeping arrangement had been ended. He wished he didn't remember it, either. He wished he could stop thinking about it... about her. About her past. About how he couldn't protect her from it.

...

Cyborg yawned. He was part-robotic, of course. The only problem with that was that it kind of messed with his sleep. He actually recharged fairly quickly- it took around four hours. He could accelerate the process, but it would take him longer to fully recharge the next night. He still needed to rest his human parts. A three hour nap usually covered it. He had to unhook himself from the charging system once he finished charging, or else it fried his battery cell.

He had just done that and decided that before settling in for his three hour nap, a sandwich was in order. A big one. Apparently, he'd eaten one of everything during his rampage on the city while he was infected with a virus from BB's pirated video game, but damn it, a boy needs his midnight snack. Or four in the morning snack.

When he entered the ops room, he was surprised to find that it was occupied. A certain Tamaranean princess must have fallen asleep on the couch watching World of Fungus.

Cyborg leaned over the back of the couch. "C'mon, Star," he murmured gently, trying to rouse her from her sleep. "Let's go, li'l lady." He reached down and shook her shoulder. Nothing.

"Damn, Star," he muttered. "You sleep through anything. I ain't gonna leave ya out here." He crossed over to the front of the couch as he spoke and he picked her up bridal style. "Wooh, girl, you are light for someone so tall."

He walked gently through his Tower, Starfire's head lolling on his armored chest. He shifted her weight and scanned his hand, then he entered her room and lay her gently on the bed.

As soon she she hit the mattress, she stared screaming.

"What the-!? Star, it's okay, it's only me!"

She didn't stop screaming, and she was screaming so loudly that she probably didn't hear him. Her hands glowed menacingly, and her eyelids had a strange glow underneath them.

"Star? Easy, princess! It's me! Cy!"

She didn't appear to hear him. She was mumbling in Tamaranean, and she was squirming like she was trying to get something off of her.

She was terrified. And somehow, even though Starfire was so wide-eyed and innocent looking, and she was afraid of silly things like thunderstorms, seeing her in a panic like this was really freaking him out.

"Starfire? Snap out of it." He crawled over her and tried to pin her arms to the side of the bed, as she was raking her fingernails over her arms and across her stomach and he didn't want her to cause damage to herself. This was a poorly calculated move. She opened her eyes- still sleeping- and blasted him with bolts.

He was thrown off her bed, but undamaged. While sleeping, she didn't appear to be able to control her energy enough to shoot real, full strength eyebeams at him. And it was more like a spray of power than two linear beams. But he was still shocked that she'd done it.

"Oh, no, I am not takin' yer attitude, princess." He was just trying to make himself feel better by joking around, but he was scared for her. What was she dreaming of? He ran a scan. She had all the biological signs of someone scared witless. Plus, she was speaking Tamaranean, which usually meant she was really, really angry, but she did it when any emotion spiked too high.

He crouched next to the head of her bed, trying to soothe her but with no results. He dutifully stopped her from harming herself, and when she finally finished shouting and struggling, he got a washcloth and ran it under cold water. He pressed it against her head gently. "There you go, li'l lady." He kissed her hair above the washcloth and smoothed it away from her face. "Feel better, okay?" He took the washcloth in his hands and turned to leave.

As he approached the threshold of her room he heard a tiny, sleepy, "Cyborg?"

He spun around and smiled at her. "Hey, girl. You feelin' okay?"

"Certainly. I believe I fell asleep on the sofa. Thank you for bringing me back to my room. It was unnecessary, but I thank you for thinking of my comfort." She beamed at him.

He beamed right back. "Aw, Star, you know it's no problem."

She yawned. "Pleasant shlorvaks, Cyborg."

"Back atcha." He backed out of the room and twirled the washcloth around his fingers solemnly. She didn't remember, and that was the best thing he could've asked for. Whatever she dreamed, he had a fierce desire to protect her from it. And he couldn't. Forgetting was merciful. Cyborg decided to forego his three hour nap in favor of research about night terrors.

...

Robin couldn't sleep. Yeah, everything had turned out alright; but it most hadn't. And he couldn't stop thinking about what would've happened if Ding Dong Daddy won that stupid race.

They'd see his old things. His Flying Grayson's uniform, his stuffed elephant, the poster, some photos. They'd know who he was. And they'd know who Batman was. Even if they couldn't guess it, they'd attack Bruce and Alfred.

He dropped his hand to touch the floor under his bed, his fingers meeting the metallic suitcase. He sighed and turned in the bed.

Normally, he had a 'no sleeping in the same bed' rule. But they'd been so busy with the Brotherhood of Evil lately that they hadn't seen each other in a while. Plus, they were dating now. Ever since Tokyo. Robin smiled at the memories. He moved in closer to Starfire and breathed in her Starfire-smells. She smelled like berries. Her breath was coming deeply and evenly, and the rhythm made him sleepy.

After a couple of minutes, though, he had the urge to check under the bed again. Which was really getting annoying. He snuggled in closer to Starfire and put his arms around her to keep himself from checking the suitcase again.

But something was wrong. She went stiff against him.

"Starfire?" he muttered. "You okay?"

She mumbled a little, the words unintelligible. "Oh, dear X'hal, please do not," she whimpered in Tamaranean.

Uh oh. Big uh oh. He'd only seen her do this once before. That had been a pretty terrible experience.

"Starfire?" he repeated, concerned. He pulled her close to him and kissed her on the forehead. "It's okay. I'm here."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Help me," she whimpered in Tamaranean.

He frowned. He stroked his fingers through her hair and over he back. "It's okay, Star." He paused and in Tamaranean he added, "You are safe."

She gasped, her eyes snapping open.

Robin smiled at her, relieved. "Hey," he said softly, tracing his knuckles over her cheek.

She looked up at him and tears welled in her eyes. "Robin... I-I was having the mare of nights... It was truly awful, and you..."

"Sh," he murmured. "I know. It's okay. I got you."

She nodded and wrapped her arms around him, tucking her head under his chin and entwining their legs together. "Robin. Thank you," she whispered, her voice a little watery.

"Hey," he said, and he put his knuckle under her chin to make her look at him. "Any time, okay?"

She tilted her head and kissed him gently. He was uncomfortable with kissing in bed, and she knew that, but it was a soft, sweet gesture. "Okay." She rested her head on his pillow and he stroked his fingers along her back.

"Good night, Star. Pleasant shlorvaks."

**Hm. I don't have much to say. Drop a review if you like? I have only portrayed night terrors somewhat accurately. They really only affect young children, although they manifest in adults who have been through emotional or physical trauma. I don't think coherent speech is usually a thing that happens. They are almost impossible to wake from. I just figured a combination of it being Robin and Starfire hearing Tamaranean would be enough to jolt her awake.**


End file.
